Swamp SWAMP, n. Spungy land; low ground filled with water; soft wet
ground. In New England, I believe this word is never applied to marsh,
or the boggy land made by the overflowing of salt water, but always to
low soft ground in the interior country; wet and spungy land, but not
usually covered with water. This is the true meaning of the word. Swamps
are often mowed. In England, the word is explained in books by boggy
land, morassy or marshy ground. SWAMP, v.t. To plunge, whelm
or sink in a swamp; to plunge into difficulties inextricable.
swamp
n 1: low land that is seasonally flooded; has more woody plants
than a marsh and better drainage than a bog [syn: swamp,
swampland]
2: a situation fraught with difficulties and imponderables; "he
was trapped in a medical swamp"
v 1: drench or submerge or be drenched or submerged; "The
tsunami swamped every boat in the harbor" [syn: swamp,
drench]
2: fill quickly beyond capacity; as with a liquid; "the basement
was inundated after the storm"; "The images flooded his mind"
[syn: deluge, flood, inundate, swamp]
swamp I. nounEtymology: perhaps alteration of Middle English sompe, from
Middle Dutch somp morass; akin to Middle High German sumpf
marsh, Greek somphos spongy Date: 1624 1. a wetland
often partially or intermittently covered with water; especially
one dominated by woody vegetation 2. a tract of swamp 3.
a difficult or troublesome situation or subject • swampadjectiveII. verbDate: 1784 transitive verb1.a. to fill with or as if with water ;inundate,
submergeb. to overwhelm numerically or by an excess of something
;flood <swamped with work>
2. to open by removing underbrush and debris intransitive
verb
to become submerged
swamp n. & v. --n. a piece of waterlogged ground; a bog or marsh. --v. 1 a tr. overwhelm, flood, or soak with water. b intr. become swamped. 2 tr. overwhelm or make invisible etc. with
an excess or large amount of something. Derivatives: swampy adj. (swampier, swampiest). Etymology: 17th c., = dial. swamp sunk (14th c.), prob. of Gmc orig.
swamp
(swamps, swamping, swamped)
1. A swamp is an area of very wet land with wild plants growing in it.
N-VAR
2. If something swamps a place or object, it fills it with water.
A rogue wave swamped the boat...VERB: V n
3. If you are swamped by things or people, you have more of them than you can deal with.
He is swamped with work...VERB: usu passive, be V-ed
swamp
swɔmp n. & v. --n. a piece of waterlogged ground; a bog or
marsh. --v. 1 a tr. overwhelm, flood, or soak with water. b intr. become
swamped. 2 tr. overwhelm or make invisible etc. with an excess or large
amount of something. øøswampy adj. (swampier, swampiest). [17th c., =
dial. swamp sunk (14th c.), prob. of Gmc orig.]
Swamp \Swamp\, v. i.
1. To sink or stick in a swamp; figuratively, to become
involved in insuperable difficulties.
2. To become filled with water, as a boat; to founder; to
capsize or sink; figuratively, to be ruined; to be
wrecked.
Swamp \Swamp\, n. [Cf. AS. swam a fungus, OD. swam a sponge, D.
zwam a fungus, G. schwamm a sponge, Icel. sv["o]ppr, Dan. &
Sw. swamp, Goth. swamms, Gr. somfo`s porous, spongy.]
Wet, spongy land; soft, low ground saturated with water, but
not usually covered with it; marshy ground away from the
seashore.
Gray swamps and pools, waste places of the hern.
--Tennyson.
A swamp differs from a bog and a marsh in producing
trees and shrubs, while the latter produce only
herbage, plants, and mosses. --Farming
Encyc. (E.
Edwards,
Words).
Swamp blackbird. (Zo["o]l.) See Redwing
(b) .
Swamp cabbage (Bot.), skunk cabbage.
Swamp deer (Zo["o]l.), an Asiatic deer ({Rucervus
Duvaucelli}) of India.
Swamp hen. (Zo["o]l.)
(a) An Australian azure-breasted bird ({Porphyrio bellus});
-- called also goollema.
(b) An Australian water crake, or rail ({Porzana Tabuensis});
-- called also little swamp hen.
(c) The European purple gallinule.
Swamp honeysuckle (Bot.), an American shrub ({Azalea, or
Rhododendron, viscosa}) growing in swampy places, with
fragrant flowers of a white color, or white tinged with
rose; -- called also swamp pink.
Swamp hook, a hook and chain used by lumbermen in handling
logs. Cf. Cant hook.
Swamp itch. (Med.) See Prairie itch, under Prairie.
Swamp laurel (Bot.), a shrub ({Kalmia glauca}) having small
leaves with the lower surface glaucous.
Swamp maple (Bot.), red maple. See Maple.
Swamp oak (Bot.), a name given to several kinds of oak
which grow in swampy places, as swamp Spanish oak
({Quercus palustris}), swamp white oak ({Q. bicolor}),
swamp post oak ({Q. lyrata}).
Swamp ore (Min.), bog ore; limonite.
Swamp partridge (Zo["o]l.), any one of several Australian
game birds of the genera Synoicus and Excalfatoria,
allied to the European partridges.
Swamp robin (Zo["o]l.), the chewink.
Swamp sassafras (Bot.), a small North American tree of the
genus Magnolia ({M. glauca}) with aromatic leaves and
fragrant creamy-white blossoms; -- called also sweet
bay}.
Swamp sparrow (Zo["o]l.), a common North American sparrow
({Melospiza Georgiana}, or M. palustris), closely
resembling the song sparrow. It lives in low, swampy
places.
Swamp willow. (Bot.) See Pussy willow, under Pussy.
Swamp \Swamp\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Swamped; p. pr. & vb. n.
Swamping.]
1. To plunge or sink into a swamp.
2. (Naut.) To cause (a boat) to become filled with water; to
capsize or sink by whelming with water.
3. Fig.: To plunge into difficulties and perils; to
overwhelm; to ruin; to wreck.
The Whig majority of the house of Lords was swamped
by the creation of twelve Tory peers. --J. R. Green.
Having swamped himself in following the ignis fatuus
of a theory. --Sir W.
Hamilton.
swamp
swɔmp n.
1 bog, fen, marsh, quagmire, morass, moor, Chiefly literary slough, Scots and
No. Eng. dialect moss, So. US everglade: The draining of swamps destroys the breeding places
of mosquitoes. --v.
2 overwhelm, overcome, flood, inundate, submerge, immerse, deluge, overload, overtax,
overburden, Colloq snow under: I'm so swamped with work I'm sleeping at the office.
3 scuttle, sink, founder: A huge wave swamped the boat and she sank quickly.
On most web browsers you can double click any word on this page to see what definitions I have for that word.
This dictionary server is not an authoratative source of information for anything. Like almost everything at sorabji.com, I set this up for my own purposes. In this case the purpose is to
browse words and ideas at random. An automatically generated page that produces Random Words
is my gateway to this resource. Below is a list of some of my favorite words discovered here. I also have attempted a word of the day type of thing,
in which I simply post interesting words that I find through the Wordswarm Random Words Pages. I have made available the complete 1828 Webster's Dictionary, which many feel is the greatest English dictionary ever published.
Other random links of mine include the Sorabji.com Random Link, which sends you to one of
over 7,000 pages on my web sites; the Face Server produces random images of
human faces; clicking the Random WAYD link shows you a random posting to my "What Are You Doing?" board; the Random USPS
Mailbox link sends you to a page with information about a random mailbox; and the random pictures page page of sorabji.com shows one of over 11,000 random images any time you load the page. On an unrelated note, I have begun making several thousand pages of legal documents searchable.